New findings on human-induced drift of Earth’s rotational pole is a wake-up call
Scientists from Seoul National University recently published a paper claiming human beings pumped water out from aquifers and its redistribution to the oceans resulted in a drift of Earth’s rotational pole, about 78.48 cm toward 64.16°E in the last 30 years.
Ki-Weon Seo from Seoul National University’s Department of Earth Science, with his colleagues, calculated that between 1993 and 2010, 2,150 gigatonnes of groundwater was removed from aquifers across the globe.
Those water ultimately got accumulated in the seas and oceans. According to their model, among many contributors to the polar motion, groundwater storage changes are estimated to be the second largest, 4.36 cm per year.